What helped you most in reducing blood pressure?

Only thing I did was lose the weight.
I was on 2 BP meds.
Started getting dizzy when I got up too fast.
MD said stop taking the hydrocholorothiazide.
Still dizzy.
MD then said cut the 20mg Lisinopril in half.
Still dizzy. BP was 104/70
MD said stop taking the 10mg and return in 3 weeks.
Today was my appt, she put me on 2.5 mg only to protect my kidneys (T2DM) but my BP was 120/60

I am eating ~2500 give/take sodium & processed food & fast food,I'm not massively working out (just started walking) ..so the only thing I've done is lost the weight.

Good luck on your journey

I had HBP, I lost 30 lbs. But on the meds I didn't take the time learn how to change my diet. I was taken off the HBP meds on July 17th but since I had not changed anything really I had an issue with water retention. I learned to Lower my sodium, as well as increase water and green tea consumption. Happy to report all the excess water is gone and my BP is normal

Low sodium diet. I brought my blood pressure down from dangerously high on medication to middle range of normal by completely changing my diet to low sodium. The bad news is, you will have to completely give up most processed foods, cook most of your food and religiously read nutrition labels.

The big culprits are bread and baked good, boxed dinners, TV dinners and meat. Potato chips have less salt than most commercial bread. Places like Trader Joe's and Whole Foods are your friends, but you're going to have to learn to be extra mindful of what you eat. 1500mg of sodium a day is not easy.

And anything that comes in a can is also full of salt. When I started reading labels for sodium numbers, it was the canned soups and such that really got me. Oh, and I was really surprised by cheese. There's more sodium that I ever expected, but as long as you don't get all crazy you can still fit cheese into a lower sodium diet.

Losing weight and limiting sodium, for sure.

This is what has helped me , along with moderate exercise.

Regular light aerobic exercise is the single most important factor for me in keeping my blood pressure in line. When I'm exercising regularly, regardless of my diet or weight my BP is between 120/80 and 105/65 .

If I get lazy and DON'T exercise regularly, my BP has been known to be 145/95... not astronomically high.. but far from healthy.

Everyone has a set of situations/issues/physical factors that can affect BP. How high is your BP? I work carefully with my chiropractor on nutrition and supplements to keep my BP at or below 120/80, and for me, I had to increase potassium and magnesium...and get more exercise. I have situations in my life that cause great stress, but when I exercise even 20 minutes a day--a walk, the stationary bike--my numbers seem to stay in line better. However, if there comes a day that these interventions don't work as well, then I'll have to consider prescription meds. Keep at it! Good luck!

divorce

Well that too.

Fortunately, i do not have high BP - actually too low sometimes.
But my husband has been trying to control his for years.
Best thing - lose weight
Limit Sodium
Exercise - he has found that even if he is doing everything else right, if he doesn't do some aerobic type exercise every few days,then his BP starts elevating. He cycles - and that works so well.
Good luck - it takes experimentation to find the best formula for you. At least it did for him.

Power walking. Really, any type of exercise, but the "slow cardio" seems to do it best. Note that my "slow cardio" is walking at 4mph (15 minutes to cover a mile) or faster. As fast as you can walk without jogging. Every time I exercised, the next day my BP would be down. If I did not exercise, my BP would be up. That is regardless of medication & diet.

For myself personally, I've found no correlation between my sodium intake and BP. As with anything that people try to fix with a hammer (just eliminate sodium, just eliminate fat, touch your nose while turning left on Thursdays...); test it yourself to see if it works for you.

I now eat a Primal diet, and as such, eat almost NO processed foods. This probably helps a lot as well.

The combo of exercising, and its result (weight loss) helped me. My BP meds have been cut in half 3 times. I'm now on the minimum dose & my doc has encouraged me to experiment going without it to see if my body will regulate it on its own. That's my last med. Even with the weight-loss, I was on a statin until I started Primal. I've responded so well to that, that I'm now off the statin (even though I eat more eggs and saturated fat than before--so much for the accepted "facts" and "settled" science).

Everyone is different, and (IMO) the amount anyone actually knows about how the body works as a system is dwarfed by what we DON'T know.

As an aside, I just did 23andme, and one of the genetic markers shows I'm pre-disposed to a higher risk of hypertension. This was not a surprise, as everyone on both sides of my family for 2 generations (at least) has had this issue. But just because I'm at a higher risk for it doesn't mean I have to succumb to it (just like alcoholism). I can choose to discipline my body.

Experiment & see what works for you. Exercise probably plays a part. Diet probably plays a part. Other things also play a part (e.g., do you smoke?).

I had borderline HBP. I lost 40 pounds, quit eating processed foods and started running. My BP is now 110/70. I can't say just one of them did it, I think it is a combination of all 3.